Zelda: The Ocarina of Tine is a 3-D work of art from start to finish. It is clearly evident that a lot of work went into the game, and developing the ambiance of the environments. Characters are well designed including enemies. You really get the feeling of being in Hyrule. Battle scenes are tremendous. Transitions from day to night are flawless. Taking a gander at clouds around the summit of Ganon's Castle truly shows the power of 64-bit. No game for N64 accomplishes this level of beauty in form and complexity. Only thing I can say that didn't give it a 10 in this category is the rather low to moderate occurance of polygon pop-up and tearing.

Traveling though Hyrule, you will get the sensation of journeying to mystical kingdom filled with magical creatures and fantastic worlds. Indeed, many aspects of Zelda's enviromnent are portrayed by the sound effects. Day is signified with the crow of a rooster, and night with the howl of a wolf. There is trickling water, cranking windmills, birds, crickets, and object impact realism. In some locations the BGM can be repetative or rather dull. It seems that a 30 second refrain was looped continuously. Hyrule Field has a Star Foxy theme to it, but the Kakariko theme has been maintained. One question though, what ever happened to the classic Hyrule overworld music that Zelda fans could hum in their sleep? It would have been nice to see that in all its symphonic glory.

Zelda: The Ocarina of Time will test every ounce of your wits. You will face puzzles seemingly so insolvable that you will probably curse out loud at the game (even though you love it). Your brain will be working overtime on trying to figure out the complexity of many of the problems you will be forced to face in order to progress further. You may spend days in places like the Jabu-Jabu, The Fire Temple, or the dreaded gauntlet - The Water Temple. You will definately feel like you accomplished something when you complete this game.

Zelda 64 will have you backtracking and searching from one end of Hyrule to another. It implements the Rumble Pak to find secrets, but there are many more that are bound to be discovered as this game goes through the Replay stage. Have you gotten all 100 of the Skulltulas or every single heart container piece, probably not, and you'll most likely spend weeks getting all of them. This game should provide a good extra month of enjoyment after you've completed it.

The plot takes place prior to Zelda: A Link to the Past, and as Video Gamer X discovered, during the time of the Imprisoning War. You will encounter many characters that will be either mysterious, like Sheik, or straightforward, like Darunia. This game is more of a Fairytale than an epic in ways, and has qualities that will remind you of midevil lore and legend. Witches, thieves, mermen people; the're all here. There are some compelling climaxes in the game that will keep your interest. One thing though, I know that there could have been more done with this game as far as storyline goes. It's almost a complete glorification of the "Save the Princess/Hyrule" theme, with some diversions thrown in for good measure. Perhaps it was the limited world that Link occupied that prevented that kind of depth from being attained, but overall I think there could have been more subplots and character interactions to enhance the effect of being a part of a realistic world.

A big aspect that has always made Zelda games so fun was the wide variety of weapons, and abilites that Link posesses in order to complete his quest. Zelda: The Ocarina of Time features the return of old standbys as well as new additions. Link now has full use of his shield, and the lock-on system gave the player better control in battle sequences. The only region that he was weak in was magic. The fact that Link has a mere three magic spells to his name is rather unimpressive. It sure would have been nice if he could cast more spells. If you've played Final Fantasy VII then you would know where I'm coming from. There had to be about a hundred different spells and summons that party members could use in that game.